UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


335 Em 3 


Ja 09-20M 


TO MR. BAER, PRESIDENT OF THE READING RAILROAD. 


delivered an address to the students of the college at Reading, 


- Pa., in which he makes an effort to inculcate a false view of the 
#54 relationship. of the capitalist and the laborers. It might be well 
to preface this analysis of Mr. Baer’s oration by stating that the 


railroad at which he is at the head, is one of Mr. Morgan’s sys- _ 


tem, and has ‘in the past been the most prolific source of the cor- 


state and congressional investigating committees have secured, 
+ from time to time, the most damnable evidence of this corruption. 
It has bought legisiators and state officials like so many cattle, 
i by the head, and has robbed the people and is still robbing them, 
* by the most extortionate rates and favoritism on transporta- 
tion. It has had some of the most notable strikes and has 
‘treated its employes as so many revolting slaves. 

=! I shall take some of the most concrete and striking state- 
ments of Mr. Baer and make comment directly under them. so 
that the line of thought may be more easily followed. My qucta- 
tions are from a newspaper report of what he said. You will note 


# Bs a bis Balat Eee A 
FY ‘on ' & a ; re ins 


ment and prejudice of the people. Corruptionists always have 
some very good excuse for any bad position. It is the “Stealing 


_ the livery of Heaven to serve the devil in.” 


Xe be ‘In the beginning man was comroanded to labor,’ said Mr. Baer. 
«When the law was given amid blackness, and darkness, and ter- 


aaa as, 
We, 


ee 


monet 


—  yible thunder, from Sinai, the command was repeated: ‘Six days - 


shalt thou labor.’ This is the law which Christ came to fulfill and 
not to destroy, and which St. Paul so arbitrarily enforces by boldly 
declaring: ‘If a man will not work, neither shall he eat.’ From 
this eternal law of labor arise great social problems, which have 
a perplexed, and, until the final consummation of all things, will con- 
tinue to perplex the world.” 


In the command to labor, is there no difference as to the 


‘ bribing legislators, or oppressing the poor, does that fulfill the 


command to labor? It is the man who does thts bad labor that 
_ is enabled to dress in fine linen and purple, while the poor slaves | 
who work at things useful have little to eat and wear. The 


RR eee 


Mr. Baer, president of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, 


- ruption and bribery of the state politics of Pennsylvania. The 


the attempt in the first paragraph to appeal to the religious senti- 


character of the labor? Is there no difference what kind of work 
is produced? If a man work six days at stealing, or robbing or — 


ere 
master class has been preaching for centuries the virtue of labor, 


but they have been very diligent in doing no useful labor which ~ 


they hold up to their slaves as the ideal of life. As president of 
the Reading Railroad it is Mr. Baer’s business to see how much 
he can get out of his wage-slaves and the public and how little 
he can give in return. This is his labor and if he succeeds well 
he is counted a success and great wealth that others produce is 
showered on him and his co-conspirators. 

Again, if we are commanded to work but six days, is it not 
wrong to labor seven days? And if it is harmful for a man to do 
this as an individual, what must be the position of the man who 
compels thousands of others to labor seven days per week—and 
long hours per day—and himself do no useful labor? 


‘““All men as laborers are not equal. 

“The equality of man is spoken of as if it were an axiom. I 
think the phrase is misleading. It is an illogical inference from the 
brotherhood of man, which, second only to our relation to God, 


is the very heart and soul of ‘Christianity.’’ 


Who said all men as laborers were equal? Who said that all 
bribers and railroad lobbyists are equal? But suppose they are 
not equal, does that give any person or corporation the right to 
make its own estimate of their worth? Men all have a right to 
live and having that right they have the right to all the air, all 
the land, all the water they can use—for without these things 
they could not live. The right of all men to vote equally is con- 
ceded and as citizens are recognized by this as equals in the 
matters that concern them as citizens. These laborers are as 
much concerned as citizens as to what share of their products they 
shall have, and THEY have the RIGHT and the POWER to say 
whether they are equal or not—not Mr. Baer. He has the right 
as one citizen to make this assertion. The laborers are foolish 
to sustain a private ownership system that gives Mr. Baer the 
power to make their wages and their hours. Brotherhood infers 
economic equality. If three brothers went fishing, one to fish, 
another to dig bait and another to tend camp and cook, would it 
be very brotherly for one of them to say to the others that they 
were not his equal and that they should not have enough to eat 
because their work was not equal to his? 


“In the true Christian sense, every laborer, if he does not, as 
Kingsley puts it, ‘work in the devil’s workshop,’ is our brother—to 
be honored, respected and treated as a brother. If he is poor, sick, 
afflicted, and physically or mentally unable to support himself, they 
that are rich and strong must help him. But neither ‘Christianity, 
morality, nor common sense requires or commands us to support or 
associate with depraved laborers. In nine cases out of ten, it is 
the lazy, mischievous, and vain, who eternally rant about an equal- 
ity, which should make the industrious support the idle, the honest 
divide with the dishonest, the upright and pure-minded associate 
with the base, vile, and obscene.” 


Talk about the rich parasites supporting the poor, sick or 


Aa Sy Sohn Son. 


y 


pasha 

afflicted! If it were not for the extortion of the rich who hold 
the possession of the wealth others have created, there would be 
no poor. It is the industrious who support the rich in vicious 
activity or idleness and extravagance. It is the rich who “divide” 
the wealth created by the work of all among themselves. It is 
the rich who adulterate goods, who devise cunning schemes to 
swindle their brothers, who bribe legislators, judges and the 
public service. They who prate about pure-mindedness are the 
base who do it to cover their own vileness. They quote volubly 
from the Bible to make believe that they are above suspicion. 
“No rich man shall enter the kingdom of heaven.” “They reap 
‘where they have not sown and gather where they have not 
strawed.” 


“In a political sense, every man is the equal of every other man— 
that is, he is entitled to the same rights and protection, and to 
be governed by uniform laws. ‘But even this equality presupposes 
#£ood citizenship. He who ceases to labor for the common good and 
transgresses the laws of the land, thereby becomes a common 
enemy. His liberty is taken from him; he is locked up in a prison 
cell, and is denied all political equality.’’ 


In a political sense, and in a religious sense before God, all 
men are equal—by what calculus then do the men who hold Mr. 
-Baer’s view assume to tell the workers of the world that they are 
not equal?. The men.who labor producing the good things of 
life work for the common good—but men who occupy the places 
of power appropriate the common good for thetr private uses. 
Most of the rich are criminal. They alone bribe the public func- 
tions. Poor men never bribe—they have not the wherewith to 
‘do it. The king always has convenient laws that enable him to 
lock up those who refuse to bow the suppliant knee—and he does 
this under the plea of public good, when in fact the public good 
would be best served by the king being locked up or at least put 
to useful work. Capitalists are like kings—they do not Jabor 
for the common good but for their private greed—and are there- 
fore common enemies. Not that they are worse than other men, 
but their interests as capitalists make them prey off the rest of 
society. This feeling is generally recognized by the common 
dislike of monopolies. 


“Tt cannot follow, therefore, that in any just conception of the 
brotherhood or equality of man, society can be reorganized so as 
to make every man a co-partner, as a laborer, with every other 
man, and entitles him to share equally, without regard to the work 
each does or the capital each puts in the business.’’ 


Brotherhood demands the economic equality of man. It was 
the “‘doctrine and fellowship” of the Christ and disciples. Among 
them none strove to take advantage of his brother and amass 
individual wealth, “but they had all things common, so that none 
had need.” Society can be organized on such a basis and will not 
be Christian until it is so organized. We have that common 


SE als 


ownership in the postal system, the public schools, the public — 


highways and hundreds of things—but we lack that “share and 
share alike’ for-service to make such ownership effective and 
good. No one desires to have every one share equally regardless 
of work. Socialism demands that each shall share according to 
the efforts he shall make. The whole people possessing all the 
capital would not have to pay some member for the use of what 
all have produced. Payment for capital is like recognizing the 
divine right of kings. Who made all the capital? Laboring peo- 
ple. Why then should they have to pay for use of what they have 
created? Of course the capitalists will endeavor to make the peo- 
ple believe it just that they pay for the use of capital, but equity 
and morals are against it. You know it was the “hard man, the 
man who reaped where he had not sown,” that wanted interest 
on capital. 

“When you have stripped communistic Socialism of its rhetoric 


and verbiage, it is based on this false conception of the equality of 
man.”’ 

“Men are not equal, physically cr mentally. - Their constitu- 
tional differences are wisely designed to enable the collective man 
to subdue the earth. Division of labor, according to the capacity, 
is the great secret of the conquering ages. Equality and common 
occupation is the dead plane of barbarism. ‘Ihe great army of la- 
borers who are subduing the earth, air and seas,.is divided like 
an army of fighters. The masses are in the ranks; there are captains 
of tens and hundreds, and of thousands. Such as prove their fitness 
by superior work are promoted from the ranks to be captains. It 
has truthfully been said that we cannot all be major generals, and 
there can be but one commander-in-chief. Some of you will re- 
member how, during the civil war, we enjoyed the droll proposal 
of Artemus Ward to recruit a regiment in which all should be ma- 
jor generals. Was it, after all, more absurd than the twaddle Pro- 
fessor Ely refers to, of the traditional elderly gentleman who tells 
all the boys in the village school that they may one day become 
president of the United States? The chances are one to Seventy 
millions. The lottery offers better chances; but we wisely pass 
laws to suppress the lottery.’’ 


When you have stripped capitalism of its verbiage, it is based 
on the assumption of the divine right of one man to rule an- 
other—of the divine right of kings. It treats men as though they 
were hogs—some fat, some lean, some big, some little, some 
white, some black. Treated as cattle, the working people subdue 
the earth—they clear forests, open and operate mines, build 
houses, factories and railroads—and the capitalist who does none 
of these things own them! That is the kind of equality that 
pleases Mr. Baer. The capitalists tell labor to build and be sat- 
isfied with the shanties, while the directors will occupy the 
palaces. 

The simile used about the ranks and captains and generals 
and commander in chief is the simile that leads to the di- 
vine right of kings again. Mr. Baer seems to like that conclusion, 
but does not openly say so. Again, he says the laws that prevent 
lotteries should apply to the boys attaining the presidency! 


ans 
That is pretty rank. But then it is really in effect. But would 
he make laws to prevent gambling in stocks, bonds and the food 
of the people? If such gambling had been prohibited by law, how 
could the great fortunes have been built up? Everyone of them 


-has been produced by gambling in some sort—of taking chances. 


Whe fact that stands out clear to any mind, even to the dullest 
laborer if he will but stop and think, is that each man in his 
place is just as essential to the world’s work as any other man 


-in his place. The Reading railroad could run if it had no presi- 


‘dent—but it could not run if it had no section hands. If the séc- 
tion hands do more of such work than the president could if he 
could hire no one to do it, then they are as much entitled to an 
equal share in the results of the co-operated labor as Mr. Baer. 
They do more of their kind of work than Mr. Baer could and he 
does more of his kind of work (assuming he does something use- 
ful) than they could, so each has his skill and puts in his time. 
If there were no parties hogging the product, the section men and 
others above them would have income enough to live in good 
houses, educate their families, dress them well and fit them for 
the best society. It is their enforced poverty, produced by the 
recognition of the private ownership of the railroad, that make 
their families unfit to be anything but servants. Some of the 
richest families have sprung from the most debased and clownish 
ancestors. In fact, all of us have come frotm a common parent- 
age,if we go back far enough. As soon as the majority, who are 
workers and poor, realize the cheat that is beIng practiced on 
them, they will change the laws and begin to enjoy the results of 
their own labor. A majority have the right to make any laws 
they like in this country, and the man who denies it writes him- 
self a public enemy to the nation and the people. Mr. Baer will 
likely say that the courts stand in the way of the majority mak- 
ing laws that will give them their own—but he will discover that 
courts are a creation of the majority and can be made and un- 
made at the pleasure of the majority. 


“The incentive to labor is the reward it brings. If you take 
away the reward, you destroy the motive. He is a vain, foolish fel- 
low who believes it possible to have all civilized men work for a 
common reward, when each will receive no more than just what 
he absolutely needs from the common stock. Why, this was the 
primitive state of man, from which it has taken thousands of years 
to extricate him. It is practically the tribal law of the Indians. 
All hope of civilizing them will fail until they are taught the great 
law of private property, and given a motive for exertion. We labor 
for ourselves and our families. Which of vou would work as you 
now work, if, at the setting sun the result of your labor was to 
be turned over to the profligate, the idle and the beastly? African 
slavery would be more tolerable. Man is not a brute nor a ma- 
ghine. The Greeks significantly named him a looker-on. Woe 
unto him when he ceases to look up! when ambition and hope die, 
as die they will, when the incentive to work is taken from him!’ 


I do not think one has much incentive to labor when he gets 


3\ 


Ek : 

only two or three dollars a day. When the reward of labor is. 
taken away from him but that, he becomes hopeless. And most. 
of them do become hopeless and sink down into the great ocean 
of mediocre. It is a false assumption about Socialism giving to 
each from the common store just enough for absolute needs. It 
is absurd. Who would get the balance? Men can produce more in 
four hours, all doing useful work, than they can consume. If 
they do their share, then each will have all their material wanis. 
supplied and opportunities for supplying all their mental wants. 
What more COULD they have or want? As it is today working: 
people are lower, in instances, than the Indians. They sink into 
savagery and hundreds of thousands of policemen and officials. 
are hired to beat them into brutal submission. 

If men only worked for themselves and their families, what 
a beautiful world this would be. But the men on the Reading road 
and itS mines and shops are working for the families of the. 
Morgans, Vanderbilts, Baers and hundreds of others, who live 
frivolous lives off the labor of their slaves. The rich are the. 
profligate and the idle and the beastly. This system makes men 
brutes and machines. Chattel slavery brutalized the master class. 
as it did the black man. Wage-slavery brutalizes the master 
class as it does the wage-slaves. Capitalists do not hesitate to. 
hire ignorant men to shoot down their slaves if they protest 
against their treatment. It is the growing ambition to rise in 
an increasing number of the workers today that inspires Mr. 
Baer to speak and if possible throw dust in their eyes that they 
will not want the very thing that will make them free—the com- 
mon ownership of the capital of the nation. 


“These are simple truths, but they are constantly ignored by 
the loud-mouthed, lazy teachers of communism, and the fomenters. 
of strife and discord. How much good might be done if all men 
could honestly be made to see that property is the reward of labor! 
What an immense amount of charity it takes to look without envy 
upon the property of our neighbors! How apt we are to ignore 
his superior gifts and his greater thrift?’ 


It is the fact that property SHOULD be the reward of labor: 
that is causing all the strife. As it is now, property is the reward 
of cunning, of adulteration, of bribery, of thievery in various legal 
forms. The rich have no charity, for they do not look at the 
property of their neighbors without envy—they envy the workers. 
the property they produce and proceed to adopt any method pos- 
sible, from purchased laws to open murder, to get it. It is rather 
amusing to talk about the greater thrift of the rich—those who. 
have done nothing but spend in extravagance the millions wrung 
from the workers in various forms of interest, rent and profit! If 
only the workers would always be contented to give up their labor. 


ef a 
to their skinners and make no outcry! What a lovely world it 


would be—for the skinners. 


“That which we call capital (I speak now not of the great riches 
of the few, dishonestly won, but of the legitimate accumulations 
of the frugal and industrious), is,.after all, no more than the stor- 
age of past labor, it may be of the present possessor or of his an- 
eae: which was saved and stored for future use through 
self-denial.”’ 


You see he acknowledges that great riches are ill-gotten. 
Then why are these fortunes not returned to those to whom they 
belong? All capital is stored or unused labor, and has been 
ereated by the human family as a whole, and therefore belongs 
to it as a whole. All men have the right to use their heritage 
from the race; and none have a right to appropriate the exculsive 
from the race,and none have a right to appropriate the exclusive 
use of it. See how the fortunes of the Astors, the Vanderbilts, the 
Morgans, the Hills and the kings and princes have been stored 
through self-denial! Working people, you should quit buying 
princes for your daughters! You should quit building yachts, 
and special cars and giving great banquets—and your self- 
denial will make you rich! 


“The earnings of labor in excess of p1resent subsistence, be- 
comes capital, to be invested in houses, lands, and all forms of prop- 
erty. If a man earns $10 a week and spends but $6 to support him- 
self, he has a surplus of $4, which represents so much labor stored 
for future use.”’ 


And suppose you have a system that provides that every man 
may have a house, or all the land he can use, or all the tools he 
needs in his vocation—what then becomes of your investment? 
This system keeps many poor so the owners can profit. If there 
were no homeless there would be no tenants. If there were 
public capital there would be no payment to drones or dividends. 
There would be no need of saving and skimping and making a 
struggle all the time to get into a position to be secure in a place 
to employ your talent. Life is not for gathering property—cer- 
tainly God did not put men on a planet that can supply all their 
wants just to see them fight and strive against each other to see 
who could get the most. Nature has enough obstacles to overcome 
without making any artificial ones. 


‘To illustrate: Two men of equal strength and capacity for 
earning start life together. The one spends the whole of his weekly 
earnings to gratify present desires. He denies himself nothing which 
he can buy. 'The other sees and longs for many things which could 
give him momentary pleasure, but looking to the future, he makes 
a temporary sacrifice, and does without them. In this way, each 
week he saves a little. Little by little he accumulates. In the 
course of years he is the owner of property. As he grows older, he 
works less, and makes his stored labor, now called capital, work 
for him. The one who spent as he earned, finds himself old and 
poor, and compelled to labor for his daily bread, as he did in the 
vigor of youth. He sees his former fellow workman well-to-do, and 
taking life easily. Instead of seeking the true cause of disparity, 
in the bitterness of his soul he believes himself injured and unfor- 
tunate. Then comes the _ superficial reformer, to whom a little 


LR 


learning has been a dangerous thing, and tells him that this cruel 
inequality is caused by a defective organization of society. The 


truth, that the fault was not in government, nor in the stars, but ~ 


in himself, seems never to occur to him.’ 

Let us illustrate it this way. Here is a child porn of parents 
who are poor and cannot give it the opportunity to develop any 
genius it has. Here is another child that inherits millions. Why 
should one child have to work for the other because of some act- 
ion of the parents, done before it came into the earth? It is alla 
lie about one SAVING a fortune by labor, let him deny himself 
ever sO much. Imagine a workingman raising a tamily on $2 a day 
and saving money to make a fortune! Why should a man have to 
save capital when there has been and always will be a con- 
tinually increasing accumulation of capital suffictent to employ all 
the people? And if a child inherits a fortune, it can live on the 
labor of others without any labor itself—without doing anything 
to entitle it to live. Does it have to save? Does it have to earn 
anything for a start, in which Mr. Bauer puts so much virtue? 
Many a poor child, if it had opportunity, would make a better 
king or ruler than the sot who sets on the throne—but is there 
any opportunity for it-to get to the throne?’ How few the vo- 
cations today that are open to the children now being born of 
working parents. The lands have all been gobbled by corpora- 
tions and speculators, the mines have all been made private 
property, the highways are in hands of transportation kings, the 
money and exchange is completely monopolized by the great 
commercial barons—is it any wonder the thinking, working peo- 
ple are demanding a change in a system that has robbed them of 
their natural rights before they were born? It would be their 
fault indeed if they did not protest. “A little knowledge is a dan- 
gerous thing’ for kings and tyrants. They want the people to 
have no knowledge at all, except the stupid plodding of the hu- 
man machine. In this country the working people are not only 
wanted as industrial machines for the production of wealth for 
the Trusts and Monopolies, but they are expected to become the 
VOTING MACHINES also. If the slaves were to revolt and vote 
for those who want a change of system, that would upset the 
whole capitalistic, gambling, slave-producing game. There is no 
more sense or reason in a child having to come up and work for 
years to produce pay for the capital it uses than for the child to 
be denied a desk in the public school until it has saved enough to 
pay its share of the building, and the expenses of the public 
school system. Or that it should not mail a letter until it not only 
paid for the cost of the missive, but also the interest on the cap- 
ital of the postal system ever since it was started. Such a posi- 
tion is too absurd for contemplation. 

“The owner of property has a right to control its lawful use. 


ia Da 


Ownership is a mere sham and delusion if it does not carry with 
it this control. So long as a man does not violate the laws of the 
community, or of God, he must be left free to use -his property as 
he sees fit. There is no distinction here between capital and labor. 
Every man must mind his own business. You know it is said to 
be the way to get rich. But it is very hard to do; we are contin- 
ually meddling with our neighbor’s affairs.’’ 


What is the lawful use of property? Is it not what the law 
stipulates? Then the laws, being made by man, man has a right 
to change those laws. If men have a right to limit the interest 
rate, they have the right to regulate the uses of all other property. 
Ownership of property is only another name for the ownership 
of men. Men cannot be free if another owns the things which 
he must use to live. He can live only on the terms and conditions 
imposed by that other. It is because the few are continually med- 
dling with other people’s business, in adulterating their food, rais- 
ing the price of coal and other things, or lowering the rate of 
wages or increasing the hours of labor, that is the trouble. 
The food of a nation is public, not private pnusiness, for_it 
affects all the people. This applies to every industry. The mas- 
ter wanted to use his slaves as he saw fit, and he made laws that 
enabled him to do so. Capitalists control the law making ma- 
chinery, have employed the most_cunning lawyers, and the laws 
are just about what they want them. Property passes down the 
line of family relation because the king’s title passed down in 
the same way. Property in men was upheld as divine by the 
very class of men who now hold that private property is sa- 
cred, and laws should be made solely for its protection. Men 
have a right to do with their property as they see fit—but we 
must first inquire what is THEIR property? The property that 
has been produced by the millions of dead and living people is 
NOT the property of the capitalists who have cunningly pos- 
sessed themselves of it—no more than the property which the 
thief has stolen belongs to him to do with as he sees fit. 


“In all ages of the world false teachers make themselves and 
their fellow-men miserable discontented and most unhappy, by re- 
garding the prosperity of one as the injury of another. It is shock- 
ely. true that ‘‘for every right work a man is envied of his neigh- 

ors.”’ 


In all ages and in all countries false teachers have been sent 
among the people, appealing to their ignorance and prejudices, 
to make them satisfied with slavery to the master class, They 
have taught them to worship idols, that they might profit by 
the making of idols. The wise men, the good men, who went 
among the people, teaching them better, have always been de- 
nounced as false teachers and killed and crucified. No man is 
envied for right work, for right work helps every one—it is wrong 
work that begets discontent. 


‘“‘The most society can do is to give every man an equal chance 
ef developing and using his powers, and to secure him in his re- 


; _ —10— 


ward according to his work. The equal chance I mean is fairly 
stated by Charles Kingsley, in answer to a criticism on ‘Alton Locke:’ 
True Socialism, true liberty, brotherhood and true equality (not 
the carnal, dead-level equality of the communist, but the spiritual 
equality of the church idea, which gives every man an equal chance 
of developing and using God’s gifts, and rewards every man accord- 
ing to his work, without respect of persons), is only to be found in 
loyalty, and obedience to Christ’s teachings.’ ”’ 


Society can, and society yet will give every man and woman 
an opportunity to develop the genius they have. [It does not do 
this when it permits corporations and individuais to own and 
control ‘and do with as they see fit,’ the lana, machinery and 
exchange of the nation. The son of the man who owns the plant 
can work there if he choose, but the son of a poor man cannot 
work there except by the permission of the owner. The poor 
son may have the most ability, may have the most willingness, 
but that does not give him a chance. There are many sons and 
only a few places at the top. So far as the PUBLIC is con- 
cerned, there are many men in the employ of the Reading 
Railroad who would make better presidents than Mr. Baer, but 
Mr. Morgan picks out Mr. Baer because he thinks he can make 
more money out of the public and the employes than any other 
man—he cares nothing for the society except what he can make 
out of it. The name of Christ in the mouth of monopolists 
‘ought to choke them. Christ denounced the rich, and the mo- 
nopolist, and the usurer—but the rich understand how to trade 
in religion as they would in stocks and bonds. sn this they are 
only repeating the ways that the priests of tne heathen tem- 
ples used to keep the people loyal to the king, and to put down 
as an offense against God every aspiration of the people for a 
part of life. But there is one thing certain—Mr. Baer cannot 
meet the Socialist on the platform before the people, nor can 
he answer the accusations and logic of their works. The hope 
that he and his class has is that they can prejudice the peo- 
ple against Socialism so they will not read it. Then they can 
control them in the future, as in the past. 


“T think it may be conceded that society is not so perfectly or- 
ganized as to secure every man an equal chance. The natural law 
of the survival of the fittest, which apparently controls the animal 
kingdom, shocks our sense of justice; but it has so far limited the 
efforts of the wisest legislators to create a perfect society, wherein 
the weak shall have an equal chance with the strong, and the fool- 
ish with the wise. The society of the future can perhaps increase 
the power of restraint, which it has in modern times wisely exer- 
cised in abrogating laws of primogeniture, laws in restraint of alien- 
ation, exempting lands from sale for payments of debts, and in ex- 
cS satel reat she laws regulating the descent of real and personal 
property.’’ 


While conceding that society is not perfect, Mr. Baer nor 
the legislators have or propose any laws upon lines different 
from those which society grows restless under. He admits that 
society does not give every man an equal chance. Socialism 


—iji— : ty 
will provide a system in which every man wil: have an~equal: 
chance. The capital will be public, every man will have the: 
same right to employment as every other man; he will get. 
nothing if he does not employ himself, and will get as much as’ 
any other if he will take his natural place in the ranks of pro- 
duction. No man or small set of men will have the power to 
shut him out of employment, or say how many hours or what 
pay he shall have. There is less need of restraint than to open 
opportunity. If the public will transport my yoods at cost, or : 
will sell me oil at cost, it will require no laws in restraint to 
prevent the railroads in private hands from extorting, or the 
oil company from overcharging. I will have the cpportunity 
to get service at the least possible cost, and that is all I am 
entitled to. It is this ‘‘equal opportunity” that the capitalists 
object to. They want no public capital, as that would prevent, 
without ary other law, their extorting from the public. Just 
as laws prevent the entailing of property, so laws making enough ~ 
property public to employ all the people would make unnecrs- 
sary any laws restraining the transfer of any kind of property. 
If people could work for themselves (the public) and get all 
they produced, they would not work for anybody else for less 
than the whole of what they produced, and that would soon 
settle the hiring of men by their brothers for profit. For profit 
off another is as surely a specie of slavery, as was the profit of 
the master from chattel slaves. 


“Whatever changes the future may bring forth, the great law 
that every laborer shall be protected in his inalienable right to labor 
must in all times be a well proportioned pillar of free government.’’ 


What the laborer wants more than even the right to labor 
is the full results of his labor, Any employer wili permit men to 
labor—it is the paying them of the EQUIVALENT of what their 
labor produces that is the trouble. I have a few acres of ground 
here. I will let all the people labor on it that desire. They 
may dig post holes and fill them up again. Nothing would re- 
sult. So you see, it is not labor, but the results of WELL- 
DIRECTED labor that is not open to the worker. Nobody de- - 
nies the right to labor—they deny the opportunity to labor pro- 
ductively and get the full results of their labor. For instance, 
the Reading Railroad taxes the public many millions annually 
on coal and transportation. It will not allow those who mine 
the coal, haul it to market and keep up the railroad, to share 
in the receipts. The managers ‘divide up” the earnings of the 
people among themselves. If the slaves complain, they are dis- 
charged or blacklisted. They want only those who know only 
enough to work—but not think. 


“Religious liberty! Freedom to worship God! This, surely, we 
will not surrender. It was bought at a great sacrifice. Is liberty 


= 19S 

to work less desirable than liberty to worship? Can the one live 
without the other? Are we free men in the sence of the Declaration 
of Independence, whose liberties are vouchsafed by the constitu- 
tion, if their be any power in this broad land to control ‘our choice 
of labor? Shall we be denied the right to work in the lawful voca- 
tions of man because we do not belong to a particular labor organ- 
ization ?’’ 

What good is religious liberty if man is hungry? Man has 
always been free to worship God—only his conceptions have 
not always been alike, and therefore, could not pe right. There 
has never been a moment when man could not worship his con- 
ception of God in his innermost soul, and no one could read 
or prevent that. Cunning always raises a false issue. They are 
continually ringing cow bells in the corn field of labor- while 
they rob his melon patch. Industrial liberty is what the world 
of thinkers demand. Are men free, when the railroads they 
work on are owned and operated by CORPORATIONS (unions 
of the men who work not)? Are men free when they are de- 
nied the right of employment by a general manager? “Would the 
public owning and the railroad men operating and making all 
the rules and regulations make the men slaves? Slavery of 
men to their unions! It is FREEDOM when men make their 
own rules. It is slavery when their rules are made by others 
. without their consent. And that is what is done today. Under 
Socialism the men employed in the railroad department would 
make all the rules and regulations regarding their employment. 
It would be a rule by the majority of men who were all con- 
versant with the business on which they voted. Every railroad 
in this country could and would run if there were no presidents 
managing to skin the workers. How absurd that the ten thou- 
sand employes and aS many more indirectly dependent on the 
Reading Railroad should have to obey the rules or laws of a 
small board of directors! No wonder the president desires to 
prejudice the men against labor unions of their own! He wants 
control of the men for the benefit of his company—not for the 
benefit of the majority or society. Are men logically slaves of 
the officers they elect to public service? Or are they slaves 
‘ when they are controlled by masters not of their selection? If 
it were not for labor unions the rate of wages paid by the 
Reading Company would not be half what it is today. 


“Tet it be said once for all, that it is, as it ought to be, lawful 
for laborers to organize, to use all lawful means to obtain higher 
wages and better conditions, and to quit work singly or in a body. 
This is their liberty. But has not every man a similar liberty of 
action? If he chooses to work at any vocation, and on any terms, 
is not this his liberty? And what moral or legal right has a labor 
organization to deprive him of his inalienable liberty to work? Yet, 
it is being done every day. ‘Men are driven from work, threatened, 
abused, called all manner of harsh names, their wives and children 


are insulted, and a social ostracism is established, which compels. 


good, honest workmen to bear the pangs of hunger rather than en- 
dure the threats and gibes of their fellow workmen. In some trades, 


apna 


employers are not permitted to employ workmen without labor or- 
ganization cards. Union men will not work with non-union men. 
Was ever greater tyranny practiced by ore set of men over their 
fellow men? Surely, if the Roman Catholics were to refuse to work 
with Protestants, or Protestants with Roman Catholics, there would 
be a howl of indignation reaching every corner of the land. Is 
there any difference in principle between the two?’’ 


When men are traitors to their class, when they will en- 


list like Hessians to serve masters for a pittance, they become 
enemies of their class and deserve ostracism. ‘They would cause 


a fall in wages that would cause more misery and degradation 
in the world than the misery caused them and theirs by the 
ostracism of their fellow workmen. Workmen who arc intelli- 
gent, stick together like the capitalists. The capitalists only 
control by dividing the workmen and conquering them in de- 
tail, which they could not do if the men acted as a unit. And 
against whom are workers thus “lawfully oragnized to obtain 
better conditions and wages? Who are the people who oppress 
them? Who does not pay them enough? Who makes them 
work under bad conditions? Is it not the Reading Railroad 
managers, of which Mr. Baer is president? This oppressor of 
labor, this extorter on freight and passenger traffic, this cor- 
ruptionist of the legislature, this Reading Railroad—think of it 
giving the employes right advice! Rich, isn’t it? 


“Government by injunction, as the catch phrase goes—they tell 
us must cease. ‘Blind leaders of the blind.’ ‘They know not what 
“they do.’ The very essence of law is government by injunction. 
‘Thou shalt not,’ of the Ten Commandments, is God’s eternal in- 
junction; and earthly power, in imitation of the heavenly, asserts 
its most beneficent authority when the legally constituted courts in 
mercy to the wrongdoer, stays his lawless hand by the law’s de- 
cree, ‘Thou shalt not!’ I rejoice in the steadfastness of the judges, 
who in every hour of this nation’s life have been the steadfast de- 
fenders of liberty regulated by law; and have turned deaf ears to 
the cry of the mob, and the temporary insanity of the multitude, and 
have administered justice and equity between man and man, with- 
out a shadow of favor, fear or trembling, on the broad principles 
of constitutional law established by our fathers.”’ 


Government by injunction is not liked by the masses, any 
more than government by the force of armed soldiery. But the 
railroad presidents like it. The injunction is always on their 


side. They understand the use of putting passes and other favors 
where they will do the most good. Judges ride on passes and 


then try cases with the very bribes in their pockets! ‘Thou 
shalt not” does not apply to railroad extortion and corruption. 
The history of their existence shows that all along. Well may 
the railroads rejoice in the steadfastness of the judges to do 
_ their bidding. It is meet that Mr. Baer should call the multitude 
insane! The few that want to rule and tob the many must 
have some excuse for their action. The majority—the multitude 
—are insane! Therefore, the railroads have the right to rule 
them by injunction! And give judges such ravors that they 
will always serve the railroads instead of the puplic good. When 


4 


a Aa 
the majority wake up some day they will elect judges who love 
justice more than money, who hate injustice, and then will come | 
a reckoning that will startle the earth—of rich people. That 
day is nearing, and the rich feel it, and they are losing no time 
in spending money like water in organizing a military system 
by which they hope a minority well armed ana directed will be 
able to control the majority unarmed and divided. The union 
men at Latimer, at Hazelton, at Coal Creek, at Coeur d’Alene, at 
Buffalo—and hundreds of places have felt what that means—and 
yet they foolishly hold to the same parties and vote the same 
tickets as their masters who have done these things to them and 
have been upheld in such murders of the workers by the men 
they have elected. But the mills of the gods grind slowly, ete. 


“Work will not be worship in this country until it is universally 
conceded that no man. shall be deprived of his right to work, by 
law, by force, by threats, by social cstracism, by boycott, or by 
insult; no man shall be denied the right to select his own vocation; 
no man shall be denied the right to work as many hours as he 
pleases, and at any price he pleases, and no man shall be boycotted 
or injured in his business because he employs non-union labor.’’ 


Work will not be worship in this country until every man 
shall have the same ownership and interest in his work and the 
production, and shall have the full results of such labor. There 
will then be no incentive to deprive him of labor, no incentive 
to ostracise him or blacklist him. He will then have the right 
to select his vocation—today he cannot; he will then need work 
no more than four hours for all the gvod things of life 
—now he does not get them, no matter how much he works; i 
then he will have only the rules he votes for himself—not 
such as are made by masters. There will be no masters, no 
slaves. The whole people will be the employers and the whole 
people will be the employed, and the whole people will have 
the results of the employment as each has done his_ service. 
‘Then work will be worship. It is never worship. when done for 
‘a master, under a. master and for a master’s profit. 


“Labor may organize, but it may not tyrannize. Labor organ- 
‘izations hitherto have failed because they have entirely overlooked 
‘these simple fundamental truths. Instead of using their utmost en- 
-deavors to bring the employe and employer clcser together, to know 
‘and understand each other better, to sympathize with one another, 
-and to heartily co-operate in every reasonable effort- to advance 
the work in which they are engaged, they have tried to make an 
‘impassable gulf between the two. ‘The efforts of employers to im- 
prove the moral and physical condition of their employes by giving 
‘them better houses, with pleasant, sanitary surroundings; by main- 
‘taining kindergartens, schools and hospitals; places of amusement, 
and churches, are looked upon with disfavor, and regarded as a de- 
“vice to seduce workmen from their allegiance to organized labor. 
‘The modern theory of labor organizations seems to be that the em- 
ployer and employe are to be divided into two great hostile camps, 
-armed and fully equipped, at a given signal, to engage in industrial 
~war. Peace is only to be a temporary thing, brought about by 
‘formulating a truce between the two ccentending armies, which shall 
‘terminate at the end of the year. In the meantime, the leaders of 
tthe hostile camps are to be fully occupied during the whole of the 


Ab. 


year in adjusting the thousand and one vexatious misunderstandings 
as to the true meaning of the terms of the truce. 'The business is 
-to be carried on by divided authority, each hostile camp having 
representatives to determine when and how the work shall be done. 
This is violating the old rule that ‘No man can serve two masters.’ ”’ 


Labor may organize, but it may not tyrannize! ‘Think of 
one man saying that to millions of workers! labor organiza- 
tions have succeeded only in proportion as they have demanded 
and had power to compel obedience to their demand. They havs 
failed in the object as a whole because they have VOTED (polit- 
ically) for the masters, while fighting (industrially) the masters 
for justice. The man who tells labor that the interest of the em- 
ployer and the employes are identical and mutual is either a 
knave or a fool. They are antagonists, and always will be. I 
have been an employer of labor. It was to my interest (as an 
employer) to get out of those who worked for me the most 
service for the least pay. If this is not true, then the reverse 
of it must be true, and that it is to the employer’s interest to 
get the least work for the most pay, which.as a business prop- 
osition, is too absurd to entertain. On the other hand, it is to 
the interest of those who work for others to get the most pay 
for the least service (hours). These statements are so plain that 
no one need err therein. The interests of labor and capitalist are 
antagonistic. You cannot make mutual the position of two forces 
that pull against each other. It is to the interest of the employed 
to get the most for their services—it is to the interest of the em- 
ployer to give the least. How can such conditions be twisted to 
be sympathetic? But when the whole people own all the prop- 
erty, and the whole people are both the employea and employer, 
then you have mutual interests—then will capitalist and labor 
be harmonious, for they will be the same people, The employer 


never gives better houses. All the employer has, the working 
people gave to HIM. If no one had worked for him he would 


have nothing to give. He gives out a part of what he takes from 
labor. Labor builds and forms everything from a pin to a palace. 
Capital builds nothing, forms nothing. It is only an excuse for 
the drawing of a part of what labor produces. It is only by cen- 
turies of education in the belief of the lie that capital is entitled 


to profit, that it has its hold on the mind of the people today— 
that an Astor who has produced nothing can draw three millions 
annually from rents of houses in New York that working peo- 
ple have builded! 

Men cannot serve two masters—they cannot serve man and 
serve money. Business cannot be carried on by divided authority 
—therefore, it should be carried on by all the people in their ma- 
jority voice of authority, not by and for the interests of a small 
number of alleged owners. 


“Tf it continues,’’ concludes Mr. Baer, ‘‘the present industrial 
- Supremacy of the United States will soon be a thing of the past, 
and we will share the fate of England. It is beyond question true 


that the primary factor in the decadence of Eng an¢ sit 
has been the arbitrary exactions of trades unions. 

papers continue to call attention to the crisis in British “induse : 
and practically agree that British workmen, through their trade 
unions, are ruining not only themselves, but the nee es ae 
country. %. Soe 


That which threatens this country is the combisatiage Cs) ee 
capitalists and the lies they teach the people to Keep their hola = 
on their ill-gotten gains. It is nothing to this country whether — § 
we ship goods away, that we have people here who want and — 
cannot buy, because the wages paid are not sufficient to enable 
them to live fully up to their ideals. Labor unions hold up 
wages and enable more families to live better than if there were 
no unions. The London papers that are howling against labor 
tyranny are the ones that uphold a monarchy! And it is such 
papers that receive the approval of American (7) capitalists like 
Baer. Unless the working people of the United States knit a 
closer industrial and POLITICAL union of their forces, they will — 
have their labor unions destroyed, as they are now in fact, by — 
reason of the judge-made laws in the interest of the masters. 
What would become of the puny master classes if the working 
people should UNITE AT THE BALLOT BOX and elect men to- 
office who believe in the whole people owning und operating the aa 
industries, instead of a few owning and mastering the workers? #amiG 

Statistics furnished by the United States government, under : 
republican management, show that under an equitable system of 
industry each worker, man or woman, could receive more than — 
$10 a day (present purchasing price of money) for eight hours, 
and have employment every day he or she desirea it. Such a sys- 
tem would produce not a single millionaire, nor could there be 
any poverty unless it were voluntary poverty. ! refer to the Thir- 
teenth Annual Labor Report of Hon. Carroll D. Wright, U. S. 
Labor Commissioner, Washington, D. C. You can get one of 
these reports free by writing for it. 


A FINAL WORD. 

The working people of this country opened the mines, built 
and operate the railroads; those doing this were fed and clothed 
and housed by other working people in other fields of labor— 
then how comes it that capitalists have possession of what the 
working people, applying their labor to God’s bounty freely given, 
have produced? They have not been paid for their work, @x-— 
cept by the products of themselves. The working people no 
more need capitalists in railroads and mines and factories, than 
they need them to furnish public schools, public roads, pubiic 
postoffices. Mr. Baer talks to deceive the working classes and in- 
duce them to continue playing the game at wnich he and his 
class are adepts and which they, in all countries and in all ages, 
have been the easy victims. Working people, why not investi- 
gate? The truth will make you free. You are the slaves of cap- 
italists mentally. You have all power in your votes to control 
your conditions of labor. They control your votes by controlling 
party machinery. Be men. Right injures no man. Capitalists 
have no right to profit off your labor any more than the master 
had the right to profit off his black slaves. Are you not men? 
Have you no rights except what capitalists give you? Fellow: 
employes, read something beside the capitalist papers; vote some- 
thing besides their tickets; cease to be slaves. . 


& 


URBANA 


UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 


WL 


